About Us

My name is Thomas Boldt, and I’m the writer and image editor on the team here at TheGIMPTutorials.com, your free source for learning materials about the GNU Image Manipulation Program, better known as GIMP. 

Why I Created This Site

After many years of working in and around the digital arts, I kept hearing people talk about using GIMP as their primary image editor.

I had tried it out several times over the years because of its popularity, but I had found it hard to learn. The industry was using the Adobe ecosystem instead, so I didn’t have much chance to actually use GIMP.

The available learning materials didn’t really explain too much, since they were dry technical manuals that were precise, but not exactly helpful. 

After a lot of practice, I realized that even GIMP is an amazing piece of free software, but most people found it too hard to get started without a bit of extra help at the beginning. I had already struggled through that process, spending a lot of time teaching myself how everything works, so why not share that with the rest of the world? GIMP deserves to be used! 

Getting used to new software is always a bit frustrating, even when you can tell that you’re on the edge of developing a whole set of next-level skills. GIMP is powerful, but it’s not exactly user-friendly until you get comfortable with it, and I wanted to make the learning process easier. 

So The GIMP Tutorials was born, and I began my mission to teach new GIMP users how they could get professional-quality image editing results without having to pay for their software. 

What You’ll Learn

Digital images are everywhere in the world today, and knowing how to get what you want from them is an extremely useful skill for a wide range of professions and hobbies. 

I write up short guides that cover everything you might want to do in GIMP, from basic editing operations to advanced custom brush creation and RAW photo editing workflows. If you want to expand GIMP’s features with the best plugins, brushes, and fonts, I’ve got guides for that too. 

Hopefully, I can turn technical jargon into information that actually means something to another image editor – even if you’re just starting out and you don’t know any of the tech terms yet. 

How We Get Our Information

The short explanation is that it comes from me, my experience working with GIMP, and some careful and methodical research among high-quality source material like the official GIMP documentation. 

If you’re wondering why you should be listening to me, I approve of your skepticism! 

I’ve been working with digital images since the year 2000 or so, when I got my first digital camera. Digital image editing for the general consumer was still in its infancy, and I think the camera’s sensor had a whopping 3 megapixels. 

Shortly after, I used a copy of Adobe Photoshop 5.5 at a computer lab in school, and my connection to the digital arts became permanent when I fell in love with what image editing software could do to my digital photographs. 

Since that fire was lit, I graduated from the York University/Sheridan College Joint Program in Design in 2008 with a Bachelor of Design (Honors) degree, and began working at a local design shop as part of the website team. 

I expanded into product photography and handled all the image editing and production for our clients, which gave me a lot of practical experience in a short amount of time. I worked with a startup company for a while, and eventually, I struck out on my own to develop my own client base and work on smaller, more enjoyable projects like The GIMP Tutorials. 

How You Can Help

Image editing is a complex problem-solving task, and there are often lots of different ways to approach the same problem. While I’m sharing the best techniques I know with you loyal readers, I’m also a lifelong learner, and I’m always happy to hear about any new tips and techniques that you might run across..

Did I leave your favorite plugin out of my list of the best GIMP plugins? Be sure to comment and let me know about it, and I’ll take a look. If you’ve got the perfect method for isolating a subject on a transparent background, feel free to share it and I’ll give it a try! 

Any contributions from readers help to make this a better learning site for everyone, so please join in and let us know your thoughts! 

You can contact us here.